One of the themes in The Crown, Netflix’s lavish retelling of the early years of Queen Elizabeth’s reign, is the unique responsibility of royal leadership in the modern world.

Shortly before her death, Elizabeth’s grandmother, the Queen Mary, tells her that the monarchy is God’s gift intended to dignify the world, and therefore, the crown answers only to him, not to the people.

Winston Churchill regularly warns of members of the royal family asserting their “individuality” or showing too much personality, because giving the public too large a window into the life of the royals might “break the spell.”

Even the decision to televise Elizabeth’s coronation, hailed by her husband, Prince Philip, as a way of inviting the country into the ceremony, comes with a caveat: the most sacred moment must happen without the cameras present. Behold, a moment too holy to be captured on film!

When Elizabeth and Philip have a falling out that results in raised voices, they are horrified to find that reporters have caught the altercation on camera. A humbled Elizabeth (humble, yet still the queen) politely suggests that their spat is all-too-common in ordinary marriages, and despite the extraordinary circumstances of this argument within this marriage, she expects them not to release the tawdry details. The reporter hands her the film canister.

The Crown gives voice to this tension inherent in all leadership positions:

How much individuality should one show?

How does one hold authority as a sacred trust?

What is the right balance in a leader showing his or her vulnerability?

When should a leader take steps toward meaningful action, and when should a leader remain silent?

The Crown and The Pulpit

Pastors wrestle with these questions regularly. A generation ago, many pastors saw their vocation along the lines of Queen Mary’s comment above: the pastorate is a sacred trust, designed primarily to set an example for the congregation, which implied that personal struggles and human frailties must remain hidden in order for the example to be without tarnish.

This philosophy extended even to a pastor’s wardrobe. Many senior citizens today cannot imagine seeing their childhood pastor in anything other than a suit and tie, even at a church picnic under a tent in the stifling heat of July. Some liturgical traditions maintain the use of the clerical collar, which, in ways similar to the crown, reminds people of the special, set apart-ness of this individual for this vocation.

In its worst forms, the “don’t break the spell” mentality led to seeing the pastor as “super-Christian,” which often concealed the reality of miserable families grown accustomed to hypocritical smiles, or the darkness of persistent sexual sin, or loneliness and depression due to a pastor’s inability to ask for help or seek out counseling. The impenetrable walls around a pastor’s “persona” became like the walls of Buckingham Palace, where the frailty and sinfulness common to all humanity was kept away from the public eye, so as not to spoil the carefully crafted image of dignified spiritual leadership.

Vulnerability on Display

In response to the excesses of masking our vulnerability, many church leaders have undertaken a new experiment altogether, in which the honorable way forward is to demonstrate how “authentic” and “real” the leader can be. Pastors may feel the need to trumpet their vulnerabilities and do whatever possible to show that they are just common people, no different from anyone else in the church. The title is just a title. The role is just a role. Honesty demands one be “transparent.”

This trend has several healthy elements. It dismisses certain aspects of the “clergy vs. laity” divide, which are more cultural than biblical. It provides a hopeful pathway for a pastor who, in a previous generation, may have felt like the only way forward was into the dark depths of secrecy. Showing an appropriate level of personal vulnerability, or being open about some of the challenges the church is facing, can serve the congregation well by giving a more accurate picture of reality.

Importance of Hidden Vulnerability

But what if, in some cases, we have overcorrected? Should we always see the public airing of personal struggle as “honorable”?

We are well aware of the unhealthy patterns that result from the old way of thinking. What about the unforeseen results of the new way? What wisdom might we glean from the past?

Almost by definition, leaders have evident authority—but almost by definition, they also bear vulnerability that no one else can see. . . . This is what it is to be a leader: to bear the risks that only you can see, while continuing to exercise authority that everyone can see.

Andy asks us to consider the intelligence briefings the president receives every morning. The president is deeply aware of the vulnerabilities of our nation, the places of insecurity, and the threats against our people. Were he to publicly speak of all of these vulnerabilities, he would paralyze the nation with fear. Were he to constantly speak of his own personal struggle to deal with the stress of bearing this burden, he would undermine his own ability to move forward with meaningful action.

Pastors must ask similar questions. What is the point of a pastor being totally open about his biggest sins and struggles, or the biggest vulnerabilities of the church, if most of his listeners cannot act in any meaningful way to resolve these issues? Andy writes:

If any of us, let alone those entrusted with leadership, showed up and were completely transparent about all the dimensions or vulnerability in our lives, nothing else would get done, any more than if every citizen knew of every threat to the nation’s welfare. . . . Audiences have no authority in these vulnerabilities—no capacity for meaningful action to address them. Others in my life do have that authority—my supervisor, my friends, my confessors, my wife. But a hall full of strangers could only listen, with sympathy or alarm, to the reality of my—or anyone’s—broken life.

Furthermore, there is the danger of leaders who seek to appear more vulnerable than they actually are. This is manipulation:

Manipulative leaders have learned to fake vulnerability—to seem exposed to risk and thus committed to flourishing. But in fact they use their ostensible vulnerability to shore up unbalanced authority. These are leaders who can produce tears on command, who share carefully chosen heartfelt anecdotes of personal failure, who seem empathetic and kind—or leaders who call attention to every little threat to their power and constantly warn of the power of their enemies, while secretly consolidating their ability to control.

Price of Leadership

There are no easy answers here, and different contexts will address situations of authority and vulnerability in different ways. But The Crown serves to remind us of the inevitability and importance of hidden vulnerability in leadership roles, something that will never go away as long as true leadership for the benefit of others’ flourishing is taking place.

Andy Crouch is right:

Transformational leadership helps people see and address real vulnerability. But leaders exist to match that vulnerability, as much as possible, with commensurate authority. So our job is often to increase others’ authority while gradually, in a measured and intentional way, alerting them to vulnerabilities (including our own limitations, foibles, and blindness). In the meantime, we must bear vulnerability that others cannot see, and sometimes will never see. Hidden vulnerability is the price of leadership.

This is the only book that I read twice this year. Don’t let its small size fool you. This book is packed with insights into humanity, Christian service, and what leadership should like for followers of Jesus. Andy’s take on vulnerability and authority has helped me to see aspects of selfless leadership that I had never noticed before.

A month before our family visited England (where we planned to see the pub the Inklings gathered in, as well as C.S. Lewis’ house and grave), I picked up this book because a pastor friend was raving about it. I wasn’t disappointed. To write such an engaging biography of a group of men, as well as to assess their literary achievements, is no small feat.

This debut novel from a Spanish journalist subverts the secular worldview and challenges contemporary orthodoxy regarding marriage, the economy, the place of religion, what constitutes progress, and the definition of feminism. Fenollera’s tender treatment charms the reader into wanting the main character (Miss Prim) to give up her stubborn, secular ways and give in to the dazzling mystery of the Christian faith. See my full review here.

Keller has been publishing a lot these days, to the point you may feel like you can’t keep up. I predict this book will become one of the essential Keller books to read. It serves as a “prequel” to the bestselling The Reason for God, in that it backs up a few steps to make the case for why a skeptical person should even entertain the thought of God’s existence or Christianity’s vision of the world. This book does more than simply invite the skeptical to consider the faith; it also grounds believers in the beauty and sensibility of their own worldview.

Mindy Belz, a renowned reporter for World magazine, has been traveling to Iraq for more than a decade now. She knows the people. She knows the places. And she wants you to know them, too. Her book, They Say We Are Infidels, does just what its subtitle promises: it takes us on the run with Christians fleeing radical jihadis. See my full review here.

I first heard about Silence when someone in the Nashville Chesterton Society passed it around at one of our meetings. I bought a copy for myself and read it quickly. The novel is brutally powerful. Its haunting picture of faith, apostasy, and the silence of God left me emotionally drained and disoriented, while still mesmerized by Endo’s work of art. Makoto Fujimura’s book places Endo’s work in the Japanese context, where the horrifying treatment of missionaries and stamping out of nascent Christianity has left a lasting mark on the culture. Taken together, these books will give you much to ponder and will invite you into the complexity of Japanese art and culture.

The research in this book paints a sometimes-grim, sometimes-hopeful picture of Christianity in North America. Lyons and Kinnaman interpret the statistics well, give us stories of churches making an impact, and help chart a way forward as devoted, grace-filled people of God. One of the most helpful books I read all year, Good Faith became a resource for me when I was writing my next book.

My commitment to reading all of the writings of G. K. Chesterton progressed considerably this year, with a number of his essays and fiction works primarily. Manalive is, so far, my favorite novel from Chesterton—a rollicking adventure that celebrates the gift of life. Crazy, and good.

Over the years, Randy has delivered encyclopedic yet highly readable takes on heaven, suffering, and generosity. Here, he turns to the meaning and significance of happiness. A landmark work that will keep you from ever pitting “happiness” against “holiness” again.

One way I can judge how much I enjoyed a book is by how many blog posts it inspires. Levin’s work was the basis for three different posts this year. See here, here, and here. This is an important work that reestablishes the need for and significance of mediating institutions in a divided country.

Until this year, despite having done extensive reading about the Holocaust, I had never given much thought to the ghetto experience that most Jews endured in the months and years before they arrived in concentration camps. I saw the ghettos as a precursor to the real tragedy, the true terror of Auschwitz and Treblinka. I was wrong. See my full review here.

2. Fantastic review by James K. A. Smith of R. R. Reno’s Resurrecting the Idea of a Christian Society. “To build a civilization of love” that Reno rightly calls for is equally—and even more importantly— about building communities of Christian practice that provide the scaffolding, the jigs, that relieve both the malaise and the burden of unfettered freedom, showing our neighbors how to live in the grooves of creaturely flourishing.

Cosmopolitan and Buzzfeed recently discovered that the church Chip and Joanna Gaines attend, Antioch Community Church, is led by a pastor who does not support same-sex marriage and who believes that homosexual practice is a sin. In other words, Chip and Joanna Gaines attend a historically Christian congregation on the matter of sexual ethics.

Now, not all Christians will agree with some of the statistics cited by the Gaines’ pastor, his linking homosexuality in most cases to abuse, or his portrayal of the “gay lifestyle.” But there is nothing newsworthy about a Christian church teaching that male-female marriage is God’s original design and that newly invented definitions fall short of God’s intention for human flourishing.

What is newsworthy is the religious undertone of the Cosmopolitan article. It reads like a heresy hunt. The magazine has “uncovered something many fans will likely want an explanation for—a startling revelation that has left many wondering where Chip and Jo stand.”

Buzzfeed is seeking clarification from HGTV, hoping (apparently) to hear the Gaines recant their pastor’s heretical beliefs. Until then “their silence speaks volumes.”

Uncovering the ‘Heretics’

This isn’t the first time we’ve seen reality TV stars come under fire for Christian beliefs. It’s happened to the Duck Dynasty patriarch, the Duggars (before their other scandals), and the Benham Brothers. After an initial “uncovering” of the disturbing perspective, outrage ensues, ultimatums are given, the stars are expected to recant, or the company is pressured to punish the heretics by cutting ties.

If my use of religious terminology to describe this phenomenon surprises you, it shouldn’t. Mary Eberstadt has pointed out the religious dimension to the Sexual Revolution:

The fundamental impulse leading to the penalizing of moral traditionalists today is not libertarian. It is instead neo-puritanical—that is, it is aimed at safeguarding its own body of revealed and developed truths, and at marginalizing, silencing, and punishing competitors.

She continues:

The bedrock of contemporary progressivism can only be described as quasi-religious. . . . Exactly like followers of other faiths, they believe both that they are right, and that people who disagree are wrong—and that those other people ought to think differently.

The so-called culture war, in other words, has not been conducted by people of religious faith on one side, and people of no faith on the other. It is instead a contest of competing faiths: one in the Good Book, and the other in the more newly written figurative book of secularist orthodoxy about the sexual revolution. In sum, secularist progressivism today is less a political movement than a church.

Exclusion in the Name of Diversity

Supporters of same-sex marriage once leaned on libertarian terminology to make their case. “Just live and let live,” we were told. Nowadays, despite surveys showing that only half of Americans support same-sex marriage, the traditional view, accepted by nearly all societies across the world for thousands of years, is treated as if it is a fringe position, worthy of public scorn.

The Cosmopolitan article says the revelation about the Gaines’ church is startling due to “the diversity of their audience.” If diversity were truly valued, then it wouldn’t be controversial to have a traditional Christian on an HGTV show.

Just think. If uniformity on sexual ethics is required, then Cosmopolitan would, in the name of diversity, bar the door to a Muslim host of a show, or an Orthodox Jew, or a convictional Catholic. No, this is not about diversity and inclusion; it’s about enforcing the new moral orthodoxy by shaming “cultural heretics.”

Christians as “Sex Rebels”

One of the chapters in my new book, This Is Our Time, is called “Sex Rebels” because it makes the case that Christians in our generation will be known for dissent from this ideology.

In the 1960s and ’70s, the sexual rebels were the hippies who wanted to throw off moral restraints in favor of “free love.” In the 21st century, the sexual rebels will be Christians who dissent from Sexual Revolution dogma.

But there’s no reason to be gloomy about the task we have before us. We have the privilege of bearing cultural reproach for the sake of the kingdom, and accepting the challenge to embody a different way of life.

If we’re going to be outcasts and dissenters, let’s be the kind of rebels that don’t just expose the lies of the Sexual Revolution. Let’s answer the longings of our society by offering an entirely different vision of sex and marriage. Let’s declare what God is for. After all, God’s “no” to certain kinds of sexual behavior goes along with God’s “yes” to sex in its proper place (marriage) and also celebrates various kinds of non-sexual but vitally necessary companionship within the community of faith.

Meanwhile, pray for Chip and Joanna and their church. The cultural inquisition is coming.

In 1917, near the end of first world war, G. K. Chesterton’s wife, Frances, wrote the song “How Far Is It to Bethlehem?” It was published in the 1928 Oxford Book of Carols. Her biographer, Nancy Carpentier Brown, explains the significance of the song and reads several of the lyrics in light of the Chesterton’s struggle with infertility.

Truly, “we have naught” but “little smiles and little tears” to offer; but in these we find the entirety of a longing heart—a heart that throbs with each recurrence of the question. How far is it? Shall we…? Can we…? May we…? If we…? We look from ourselves to Another, and the questioning increases in intensity. Will He…?

The Christ Child at the ending of the poem is the perfect answer, an answer not yet fully attained. Is the ‘heart’s desire’ something that truly can be found? In faith, the poet asserts that it can and will be. Here is eschatology encapsulated: we taste, like the imagined dreamer, that which we will only fully discover after death and in union with the Divine. What we hope for, what we long for, is already realized in our aching, unsatisfied hearts.

Her question—How far is it to Bethlehem?—seen in light of her own life, becomes vibrantly real. How far is she from the illusive dream—in her case, the dream of maternity? Frances suffered from infertility, longing for babies of her own to hold. But while the medical world could not offer a cure, she consistently saw hope in the Nativity scene, in the Babe in the manger. How far is it to Bethlehem? Frances asks herself, and then she answers beautifully, hopefully, and faithfully, “not very far.” In fact, it is as close as the manger itself must be to those who approach it.

My favorite version of this song is sung by David James, who sounds a lot like Josh Groban (see here).

Below are the lyrics and a couple of choral versions.

How far is it to Bethlehem? Not very far. Shall we find the stable room Lit by a star?

Can we see the little Child? Is He within? If we lift the wooden latch May we go in?

May we stroke the creatures there Oxen or sheep? May we peep like them and see Jesus asleep?

If we touch His tiny hand Will He awake? Will He know we’ve come so far Just for His sake?

Great kings have precious gifts And we have naught Little smiles and little tears Are all we brought.

For all weary children Heaven must weep Here, on His bed of straw Sleep, children, sleep.

God in His mother’s arms Babes in the byre Sleep, as they sleep who find Their heart’s desire.

Elizabeth Gilbert traveled the world to find happiness, and then documented her journey of self-discovery in Eat, Pray, Love. Since her epiphany, she has divorced her husband and fallen in love with a woman.

Glennon Doyle Melton, a popular blogger and speaker at women’s conferences, recently finalized her own divorce and announced that she has a new partner, “my person”—a soccer player named Abby Wambach.

My purpose here is to go beneath the surface in order to examine some of the foundational issues at work here. How does one come to believe that Jesus must be okay with a woman divorcing her husband and taking up with another woman— despite Jesus’s words about the permanence of marriage and its creational, male-female design?

According to this way of thinking, the goal of life is to discover and express your unique sense of self, no matter what others may say or do to challenge your freedom of personality. The narrative arc of your life is finding your personal route to happiness by following your heart, expressing your true self, and then fighting whoever would oppose you—your society, your family, your past, or your church.

This is one of the dominant narratives of our time. It shows up in movies and music, and increasingly, on the platforms of popular preachers and teachers—both male and female.

Christian Counterfeit

The religious form of expressive individualism imagines the believer wrestling against the bondage of their past, or the expectations of their parents, or the legalistic regulations of their church. God’s rescue frees us from all these chains, and sets us on a journey to discover our true essence, which we then offer up as a gift to God and the world. Our goal is to become all that God has created us to be. Anything that gets in the way of this journey must be an evil barrier, overcome only through personal faith and reliance on Jesus.

Now, there are certainly some elements of Christian truth here. Like any good counterfeit gospel, it mimics the truth at key points.

Yes, God wants to free us from the sin and shame of our past, to rescue us from paralyzing guilt, to overcome the barriers that keep us from pursuing radical obedience to his command as we come to know him and his Word with increasing fervor. And yes, God wants us to lean into becoming all that he has created to be—conformed to the image of his Son. And yes, God wants us to be happy, not just joyful or blessed or holy. (See Randy Alcorn’s exhaustive work on Happinessin case you need biblical evidence or voices from church history.)

But note how this gospel of freedom redefines Christian teaching at key points.

Sin is failing to reach your potential.

Shame is a subjective feeling you bring upon yourself and must set aside, not a state that results from objective sin against a holy God.

Guilt is what happens when you fail to accept yourself, to love yourself, or to sense your own worthiness of happiness.

The barriers that stand in your way of pursuing your dreams must all come down, no matter where they are.

This is not Christianity. It’s a Christianized form of expressive individualism that you can find in just about any self-help book—an inspirational, feel-good message that makes perfect sense in Western cultures, but leaves traditional societies, many of them Eastern, aghast at its sanction of selfishness.

Cheer or Jeer?

Not surprisingly, people who are expressive individualists can do nothing but cheer someone’s life choices.

“I know my Jesus,” Melton says, in defense of her decisions. Whichever Jesus she knows, it’s hard to imagine him corresponding to the Jesus of Nazareth who took the hard line on divorce, to the point he stunned even his disciples. The idea that Jesus would bless the dissolution of marriage vows still shocks Christians in most parts of the world, but not in the United States, where Jesus is appealed to as the coach who is helping you find your way forward to becoming a better you.

Strikingly, a number of women who have shared the platform with Melton either cheer her on or have nothing to say. Even if some Melton’s friends think it is inappropriate to celebrate a divorce or this newfound relationship, they cannot and will not speak up, because to do so would strike at the underpinnings of expressive individualism, which unites their platform. They cannot utter a word of judgment because their own expressive individualism leaves them no grounds on which to make any moral judgment regarding sexual expression. Once we abandon the historic teaching of the church, that God’s design for sexuality and marriage is intended for human flourishing, and that God’s “no” is always set against the backdrop of his glorious “yes,” we are left with nothing more than the gospel of self-fulfillment.

Look in the Mirror

Now, before you readers who agree with me nod your heads too vigorously, let me hold up a mirror. It would be silly and irresponsible to speak about this expressive individualistic philosophy leading to sexual hedonism as if it were just a problem out there, with those people. And it would be the height of hypocrisy to think that this is an issue primarily for our LGBT friends and neighbors, but not for the rest of the church.

In fact, I would say that one of the primary reasons why so many in the LGBT community think that Christian opposition to same-sex relationships is motivated by fear, hate, or personal disdain is precisely because they see what we do not. They see just how expansive is our own dedication to expressive individualism, this idea that we are to cast off restraints, find ourselves, discover our path to happiness and be free.

When churches sanction expressive individualism everywhere else (money, marriage, sexuality, career path, and so on) but draw the line at same-sex relationships, it does indeed look like we are singling out homosexuality as “the sin above all sins.” You may be closer to the gospel of self-fulfillment than you think.

Our Challenge

We have our work cut out for us in the days ahead. Christians who believe the gospel is more than just a word of self-fulfillment will need to be equipped to see the right and good longings at the heart of expressive individualism, the lies inherent in this philosophy, and then learn to tell a better story than that of the world.

We won’t succeed with shrill condemnations of people taking their philosophies to the logical end. We will need to take a good look at our own foundational worldviews and practices, recognize our complicity, and in repentance and faith, move forward with a gospel that says so much more than You are great.

2. William Doino, Jr. – Losing Control of History. If there is one concept that’s taken a massive hit from Donald Trump’s election, it is the idea that secular history can be predicted with certainty by “experts.”

5. Jennifer Lyell – The Best-Seller Myth.Good, insider information on how bestseller lists are compiled, and why Christian writers and publishers should be wary of them.

6. Mark Lilla – The End of Identity Liberalism. The media’s newfound, almost anthropological, interest in the angry white male reveals as much about the state of our liberalism as it does about this much maligned, and previously ignored, figure.

If you’re like me, the constant stream of news concerning the wars in the Middle East can have a dizzying, deadening effect on your psyche. We know things are bad in Iraq. We see pictures from war-torn Syria. A photo of a child in distress reaches down to the depths of our hearts and alerts us once again to the carnage of war.

Yet because most of us are unfamiliar with the geography, and because most of us have no family or friends in the area, we find it hard to feel the tragedy of what is unfolding in the shadow of ISIS. Only when a Western nation is attacked do we sit up and take notice. The march of radical Islam in the Middle East is background noise until there is a terrorist attack that upsets the routine in our own culture.

Mindy Belz, a renowned reporter for World magazine, has been traveling to Iraq for more than a decade now. She knows the people. She knows the places. And she wants you to know them, too. Her book, They Say We Are Infidels, does just what its subtitle promises: it takes us on the run with Christians fleeing radical jihadis.

As a female reporter, Belz has access to people and places that most reporters do not. “I had a window into an under-explored world,” she writes of the women she interviewed, “the opportunity to see a perspective sometimes lost in larger venues and more powerful halls. The concerns, hopes, fears, and opinions women voiced in those settings sometimes cut across ethnic and religious lines. They held a pulse of popular opinion no one was polling.”

From Hopeful Beginnings to Chaotic Darkness

Mindy’s first visits to Iraq took place during the early days of the war, when Saddam was on the run and Iraqi Christians were chasing hope. But the story gradually unfolds into the chaotic darkness of ISIS-established caliphate. Belz’s reporting follows the trajectory of the country as a whole, from its first steps toward democracy to its stumble into the grip of radical Islam.

The city of Mosul, now in the fight of its life, was a beacon of hope at the beginning of the war. In 2004, General David Petraeus and his troops could walk the streets freely, even at night. Mindy explains:

“The city was poised to model what the rest of a new Iraq could look like. The 101st had led the way on D-Day, turning the tide of World War II, and it looked as if the airborne division might also create its own beachhead in Iraq.”

This was not to be. The Bush and Obama administrations both failed to protect religious minorities or fully comprehend the sectarian violence that would rush into the void of Iraq.

“American leaders exchanged the lives of those targeted by sectarian militants for the supposed advantage of appearing nonsectarian. The reluctance of Western leaders to intervene seemed to stem in part from a tragic misunderstanding.”

Belz expresses frustration in American leadership for failing to see political parties who wanted to a theocratic government as a threat:

“American planners would be dogged by two errors in judgment: underestimating how dangerous the terrorists truly were and ignoring the subtle differences dividing Islamic jihadists.”

Christianity’s Mass Exodus

Ironically, Christians had it better under Saddam, who was “an equal opportunity oppressor.” He was terrible, of course, but Christians had at least some measure of freedom and protection. In the void created by the Iraq War, Christians became targets. Churches were bombed. Christian schools came under attack. Convents were struck by missiles.

And then followed the mass exodus of Christians. “Lacking protection and support, about two-thirds of the Christians living in Iraq in 2003 had disappeared by 2011,” Belz writes. The disappearance of Christians is a devastating blow to the heritage of the Nineveh Plains, which sent two delegates to the Council of Nicea in AD 325.

As Christians fled, ISIS attacked, systematically stripping the country of any evidence of Christianity. Churches were destroyed, occupied, or converted into mosques. Militants posted videos on social media showing the demolition of Jonah’s tomb—a site revered by Muslims, Christians, and Jews.

Death and Destruction

As the situation worsens, we feel the increasing risks of Mindy’s reporting, signified by her newfound discomfort in appearing without her head covering.

“Only a few years before, women in Mosul wore Western clothes. Now even Christian women did not take to the streets without head coverings.”

One cannot separate the personal from the professional. As Mindy hears of the deaths of her friends and coworkers, we feel her grief and horror. By the end of the book, the description of Christians and Yazidis who climbed Mount Sinjar is reminiscent of what we might read of WWII’s concentration camps.

“Once they scaled Mount Sinjar, those escaping the city were trapped without water, shelter from the sun, or provisions. With the rising of a direct late-summer sun, forty-five children died of thirst within the first hours of the next day. At least fifty elderly people perished that same day. ISIS fighters who chased them killed 1,500 men, all with wives and children watching. The dead were mostly Yazidis, but those trapped on the mountain included fifty Christian families who had escaped Sinjar as the terrorists took over the Syriac church and covered its cross with the black ISIS flag. . . .

“The number of captives killed on Mount Sinjar would quickly rise to 1,500, then to 2,600, and eventually to more than 7,000.”

“. . . dead bodies lying everywhere among the exposed rock and dust of Mount Sinjar. Parents threw children from the mountain rather than watch them die or be captured by ISIS. After everyone’s cell phones had died, he said, runners—mostly young men willing to risk being caught—delivered updates on new deaths.”

Feeling the Situation and Suffering

The situation may be hopeless, but Christians have hope. And courage. Mindy’s interview with a bishop stands out to me as a picture of Christian faithfulness in the midst of tragedy:

“Not giving in to the devastation, the sixty-seven-year-old bishop told me he had just returned from officiating at a wedding. His route took him through areas of rubble and cratered buildings. After two years of civil war, the debris was so pervasive that even when the bombs weren’t falling, the limestone and concrete dust was rising. Aleppo was one of the largest cities in the Middle East, its old center with its ancient souk and citadel among the best preserved anywhere, until the war. Day or night, the air now hung thick with war debris, the crumbled buildings exhaling their losses so unceasingly that satellite imagery captured the haze from space, thick like a cloud covering. Militants kidnapped two prominent clergymen in Aleppo, but Bishop Audo wasn’t changing his routines, except to wear regular clothes rather than vestments in the streets. He refused to hire his own security, even though he was a well-known church leader throughout the country, with a distinctive crop of white hair. As rector at St. Joseph’s, he continued to hold a daily Eucharist service, earlier than usual so that parishioners wouldn’t have to walk home in the dark. Twenty to thirty people were coming. Every day on his way to and from the church and on visits, he saw dead bodies in the streets. ‘I am not afraid. It’s a question of confidence. I am confident of God’s provision as I am doing my job, and I like to go in the streets to feel the situation and the suffering of the people,’ he said.”

“Feeling the situation and suffering of the people.” Those of us in the comfortable confines of American homes may not feel the situation and suffering of these people like Mindy, or Bishop Audo, or other Christian leaders do.

But thanks to Mindy Belz’s excellent reporting, we can admire the courage of Christians in the Middle East. We can pray for peace and justice to reign. We can support refugees fleeing these countries. And we can make sure that next time we see a headline on the news ticker, we remember our brothers and sisters in need.

Earlier this week, I posted a few pictures from our trip to South Korea, where we launched The Gospel Project in Korean. As I’ve been processing the events during our brief sojourn in this beautiful land, I’ve kept returning to a couple of Korean prayer practices that challenge me.

Here are two areas in which the Korean church has something to teach us in the West.

1. Praying for the persecuted church should be frequent and specific.

The believers in Korea pray fervently and regularly for persecuted Christians. Their focus on persecuted believers may be prompted by their proximity to North Korea; nevertheless, they demonstrated a commitment to praying for believers in other parts of the world as well.

This weekend, we prayed for specific cities and villages in the Middle East. We prayed for Mosul by name. We prayed for Christian refugees fleeing ISIS. We prayed for Christians in certain provinces of China.

Not surprisingly, the most fervent cries were for the brothers and sisters just to their north, in the closed-off darkness of that despotic regime whose shadow falls over the rest of the Korean peninsula. Throughout the week, we had multiple conversations about North Korea, and the challenges of reintegration if/when the regime collapses. With sadness, we discussed the militant atheism, but with hope, we spoke of a day when the church there will be open, free, and on fire for the gospel.

In every Korean prayer time I was part of this week, at least one of the prayers centered on North Korea. This practice challenged me to add specific persecuted churches to my prayer list, rather than occasionally lift up the persecuted church in general.

Just last week, I finished reading a book by Mindy Belz on the plight of Christians in Iraq—believers fleeing the shadow of ISIS. The end of the book sent a wave of helplessness over me, because I realized how little I could do, as just one person, in the face of such a massive movement of violence and hatred. But then I thought: I can pray. Our prayers are not wasted. Joining our spirits to the Spirit’s groaning is never in vain.

The Korean Christians pray regularly and specifically for the persecuted church. So must we.

2. Praying constantly should feel normal, not strange.

What struck me even more than the specific prayers for the persecuted church was the frequency and ordinariness of prayer among Korean believers.

Whenever a group of Koreans is praying, whether as part of a church service or spontaneously in small groups, someone takes the lead, guides the rest of the group in what to pray for, and then says, “Let’s pray.” At once, everyone prays out loud, according to the direction of the leader.

I’ve written before about Romanian prayer practices, including the spontaneous prayer times when someone would pray out loud and everyone else would affirm them with “Amens” and other comments. But in Korea, the spontaneous prayer times involve everyone at once, praying quietly, but out loud.

Prayer takes up a larger portion of the service than in most American congregations. And this emphasis on prayer goes beyond worship. There are hour-long prayer meetings every single morning for the Korean church. Also, I witnessed (and participated in) multiple spontaneous “huddle-ups” where a group would pray for something specific right before an event.

Prayer is also done individually, with a constancy that seems strange to the American eye, but feels absolutely normal in Korea. At one point, as we were waiting for our seminar on The Gospel Project to begin, my wife and I looked over to a lady sitting next to us, who was praying quietly with her eyes open, just as if it was the most normal thing in the world to talk with God, out loud on her own. When she finished, she let us know that she had asked the Lord to not let the rainy weather hinder people who planned on attending the event.

During my time in Korea, I was struck by the naturalness and normalcy of continual, constant prayer. It’s not that I’m always prayerless, but that I am rarely prayerful.

The apostle Paul encouraged us to “pray constantly,” and as I watched the Korean believers in action, I said to myself: Well, we believe King Jesus is present with us, so why NOT just stop and ask Him for something whenever we need it? This shouldn’t feel strange, but normal.

Praying with the Global Church

One of the great blessings of meeting other believers is the opportunity to witness different church practices, receive insight into familiar Bible passages, and grow in our appreciation of Christianity’s transformation of other cultures and societies.

I’m thankful for the challenge I’ve received from my brothers and sisters in Korea, especially when it comes to prayer. I hope you are challenged, too.

Corina and I are wrapping up a five-day sojourn in South Korea, where we are helping launch The Gospel Project in Korean, the first time the curriculum has been translated into another language.

Six years ago this month, I began my work at LifeWay. I was tasked with laying the foundation for a new curriculum, which would soon become The Gospel Project.

As I think about those early days at LifeWay and the first months of planning, I shake my head in disbelief. Never would I have imagined that this curriculum would be used by more than a million people across the English-speaking world. Nor would I have thought that in a few years’ time I would be in Asia training pastors and church leaders on how to launch the curriculum well in this context. The Lord had plans far bigger than mine, or anyone else at LifeWay. His plans are more marvelous than we often dare to dream.

The Gospel Project in Korean

When we arrived in Korea, we received printed materials of The Gospel Project for kids, students, and adults, all translated into Korean (see pictures below). All week, I kept going back to these books, flipping through them and looking at the design, and recognizing the supplemental material (Voices from Church History, 99 essential doctrines, etc.). Because I have taught for so many years from The Gospel Project, I could see the flow and layout of a session even when I was unable to read a single letter or character of the Korean language.

The experience of seeing the work of our Gospel Project teams, all the writers and editors over the years, fully transposed into another key, translated into a new language and contextualized for the Korean context, was emotionally moving. The excitement of Korean Christians to start this project has been inspiring, reminding me that the sometimes grueling work of enlisting writers and editing their writing has been worth it. God is using our team’s contribution to bring about fruit in places we never expected.

It is certainly a blessing to see The Gospel Project materials in Korean, but the bigger blessing has been getting to know multiple believers in Korea and learn about the ministry here. On Sunday, I preached two services at a church in Seoul, where we met people from all over the world. We spent time with pastors and translators and editors at a seminar for The Gospel Project on Monday, and I did several interviews with different magazines and the Korean international Christian television station on Tuesday.

Of course, we also enjoyed fellowship around tables where we delighted in Asian cuisine—after every meal, we had full hearts and full stomachs. Along the way, we were blessed to meet pastors, church leaders, and Christians serving the Lord in different ways.

Below are some pictures from our time in Korea this week. Please pray for the believers there and pray that the churches using The Gospel Project will be strengthened in their mission of reaching the lost, and coming to better know God and His Word.

The Gospel Project for Kids, translated into Korean

Leading a seminar of training for The Gospel Project, in Seoul

The Gospel Project for Adults, Leader and Personal Study Guide, translated into Korean

The inside pages of The Gospel Project for Adults, in Korean

Meeting with some of the team members responsible for the design, production, and translation of The Gospel Project in Korean.

The inside pages of The Gospel Project for Students, in Korean

Recording a TV interview for a Korea-based international Christian station

Visiting the cemetery filled with missionaries who came to Korea, from the 1700-1800’s until the present.

Another picture from the missionaries’ cemetery. One gravestone said, “I’d rather be buried in Korea than in Westminster Abbey.” He got his wish.

1. Breakpoint Symposium – The Election and the Church: “What has the 2016 election revealed about the state of the Church and its place in American culture, and how ought we (the American Church) move forward from here?” With responses from myself and many other writers and thinkers, such as Bruce Ashford, Mindy Belz, Rod Dreher, Maggie Gallagher, Peter Leithart, R. R. Reno, Ed Stetzer, John Stonestreet, Mark Tooley.

2. Jarvis Williams – Jesus is King of the Universe.During these uncertain times all Christians (red and yellow and black and white) must rest in this very real fact: Jesus Christ is still king of the universe. In fact, Jesus reigns as Lord and Christ over President Elect Trump. And don’t miss Bruce Ashford and D. A. Horton on a post-election blueprint for evangelicals of all races.

Last week, John Stonestreet of the Colson Center for Christian Worldview asked me to participate in a Breakpoint symposium with other writers and thinkers (John Stonestreet, Mindy Belz, R. R. Reno, Rod Dreher, and more). We were given the space of 350 words to respond to the following question:

“What has the 2016 election revealed about the state of the Church and its place in American culture, and how ought we (the American Church) move forward from here?”

I encourage you check out the various answers, which go in a number of different directions. I chose to answer this question by widening the view so we can see how political engagement is taking place. The question before us is not only about political positions, but also political posture and how Christian convictions are brought to bear on how we engage in the future.

First, the Church’s political witness has fractured along many of the same fault lines we see in the wider culture, where one’s vote is more likely to be influenced by generation, race, or political affiliation than by religious conviction.

Secondly, the Church’s political passions have, like the wider culture, been fueled by self-selected social media and news organizations that do more to affirm the rightness of preexisting views than to inform and challenge with truth instead of spin.

Third, the Church’s political posture has degenerated into a despairing defensiveness, proving we are just as susceptible as the rest of society to apocalyptic rhetoric and demagoguery from both the right and the left.

Overall, the 2016 election has shown how the Church’s political engagement is shot through with ressentiment—the Nietzschean concept warned about by James Davison Hunter, in which we ground ourselves “in a narrative of injury. . . a strong belief that one has been or is being wronged.” Surveying our political landscape driven by rights, wrongs, and a mindset of entitlement, the Church has adopted the same posture as other groups, and has embraced fear as the primary motivator for political involvement.

Moving forward, the Church must look for ways to reclaim and embody the Christian virtue of hope—the only sword sharp enough to cut through the marrow of ressentiment. Society often reduces hope to a wish, a human longing for a future that may or may not be certain. The Christian sees hope as rooted in God and His promises. Hope challenges the Church’s fear of injustice going unnoticed by reminding us of the future when God will right all wrongs. We trust not in our own efforts to bring about a particular vision of the future, but in God to restore His creation and make everything right again.

Further, hope challenges ressentiment with cheerful courage in the face of opposition. Hope calls us to replace bitterness and grievances with confidence in God’s good purposes for the world, and love for the people who may injure us.

Hope also calls us to personal repentance and relational restoration. In hope, we extend the hand of fellowship to believers who have wounded or disappointed us. In hope, we apologize for our own harshness and hard-heartedness. In hope, we recommit to one another as an act of faith: a sign that communities matter, that people matter more than politics, and that mediating institutions (like the Church) are indispensable to the common good.

I’ve got a lot more to say about this election, but it will have to wait for a few days and weeks. For starters, I do believe this contrast of ressentiment and hope to be crucial for our involvement in the Trump era. There are a number of good responses to this question over at Breakpoint’s Symposium. I recommend you check out the others also.

]]>https://blogs.thegospelcoalition.org/trevinwax/2016/11/10/the-2016-election-and-the-american-church/feed/3https://blogs.thegospelcoalition.org/trevinwax/2016/11/10/the-2016-election-and-the-american-church/The Church of C. S. Lewis and the Dogma that Makes the Differencehttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/wordpress/trevinwax/~3/RrQkuegtK5c/
https://blogs.thegospelcoalition.org/trevinwax/2016/11/10/a-tale-of-2-churches-and-the-dogma-that-makes-the-difference/#commentsThu, 10 Nov 2016 00:10:00 +0000http://blogs.thegospelcoalition.org/trevinwax/?p=26222

On our trip to England in September, my family and I stopped by Porchester Castle for some family pictures shortly after my brother-in-law’s wedding. The castle was built in the 11th century, and within the fortress walls is a beautiful Norman church surrounded by an ancient graveyard.

The church intrigued me much more than the castle.

On the stone wall that closed in the graveyard, there was a banner draped over, advertising The Alpha Course—a non-denominational “introduction to the basic doctrines of Christianity” course used for outreach in several countries now. The church’s website describes the pastors as having evangelical affiliation.

I was inspired. Here was an ancient church, surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses, determined to never be just a museum. The sign outside of the church communicated on message strongly: We believe this story, and we want you to believe it, too.

Where C. S. Lewis Went to Church

Two days later, we visited Beaconsfield and Oxford, where I visited the homes and graves of G. K. Chesterton and C. S. Lewis. Lewis is buried at Holy Trinity Church in Headington, an old Anglican congregation that prides itself on its connection to Lewis and points visitors toward the Narnia window. The churchwarden treated us kindly and directed me and my son to the pew where Lewis and his brother, Warnie, would sit.

Sitting in the pew where C. S. Lewis and his brother Warnie sat every week at Holy Trinity Church.

Out of curiosity, I looked up this church online as well. But the difference between the Porchester church and Holy Trinity was striking. Consider this excerpt:

We come with open minds and open hearts doing our best to reflect honestly on the meaning of the story of Jesus for our day and to welcome all who may want to travel with us without questions about past, background, orientations or beliefs. This is not a church where you will find a fixed set of dogmas but rather an encouragement to wonder, to question and to value the views of others.

That last line, about not finding a fixed set of dogmas, but instead being encouraged “to wonder,” threw me back on my heels. Boy, would Lewis have a few things to say to that! I thought. No one who reads Lewis can imagine him setting up a dichotomy between “wonder” and “dogma,” as if “a fixed set of dogmas” is a bad thing.

C. S. Lewis vs. Minimal Religion

In an essay in God and the Dock, Lewis decried a “minimal religion” that seeks to shed dogma. “The minimal religion in fact cannot, while it remains minimal, be acted on,” Lewis said.

“As soon as you do anything you have assumed one of the dogmas. In practice, it will not be a religion at all; it will be merely a new colouring given to all the different things people were doing already. . . . The minimal religion will, in my opinion, leave us all doing what we were doing before.”

Lewis found the doctrine-less and “undogmatic” Christianity to be severely impractical, and merely a religious veneer for blessing your life as it already is. He also found that religion without dogma left us with a tame God, certainly not Aslan— unsafe, but good—whose image is visible in the Narnia Window.

“The god of whom no dogmas are believed is a mere shadow. He will not produce that fear of the Lord in which wisdom begins, and, therefore, will not produce the love in which it is consummated. . . . There is in this minimal religion nothing that can convince, convert, or (in the higher sense) console; nothing, therefore, which can restore vitality to our civilization. It is not costly enough.”

Dorothy Sayers: The Dogma Is the Drama

Dorothy Sayers, one of Lewis’s friends, went to the heart of the matter:

Official Christianity, of late years, has been having with is known as a bad press. We are constantly assured that the churches are empty because preachers insist too much upon doctrine—dull dogma as people call it. The fact is the precise opposite. It is the neglect of dogma that makes for dullness. The Christian faith is the most exciting drama that ever staggered the imagination of man—and the dogma is the drama.

Now, we may call [Christian] doctrine exhilarating, or we may call it devastating; we may call it revelation, or we may call it rubbish; but if we call it dull, the words have no meaning at all . . .

Sayers made a similar point to Lewis, how doctrine-less religion leaves us without a God to worship:

. . . . for the cry today is: “Away with the tedious complexities of dogma—let us have the simple spirit of worship; just worship, no matter of what!” The only drawback to this demand for a generalized and undirected worship is the practical difficulty of arousing any sort of enthusiasm for the worship of nothing in particular . . .

It is the dogma that is the drama—not beautiful phrases, nor comforting sentiments, nor vague aspirations to loving-kindness and uplift, nor the promise of something nice after death—but the terrifying assertion that the same God who made the world, lived in the world and passed through the grave and gate of death.

G. K. Chesterton: The Dogma That Unites

Most likely, the folks at Holy Trinity Church believe that a “fixed set of dogmas” won’t go over well in a pluralistic society, that harping on Christian doctrines may prove divisive. But what if the opposite is true? What if dogma is what brings people together? After all, the pursuit of truth is the only common bond worth arguing about.

And what if disdaining a “fixed set of dogmas” merely replaces one set of dogma for another, and leaves us blind to just how dogmatically anti-dogma we are?

The vice of the modern notion of mental progress is that it is always something concerned with the breaking of bonds, the effacing of boundaries, the casting away of dogmas. But if there be such a thing as mental growth, it must mean the growth into more and more definite convictions, into more and more dogmas.

The modern world is filled with men who hold dogmas so strongly that they do not even know that they are dogmas.

Tale of Two Churches

I don’t know what the future holds for the church in Porchester or the church that C. S. Lewis attended. I do, however, know which church I’d rather visit, and which church has the closer connection to Christians all over the globe and the Christians who have gone before us. I know which church is closer the global and historic witness of the church because of the dogmas and doctrines we hold in common.

Dogma vs. wonder? Don’t you believe it!

What’s truly wonder-filled and awe-inspiring is not the vague generalities of societal “inclusiveness,” but belonging to a people all over the world and throughout the corridors of time, who read the same Bible, recite the same creed, and believe the same, let’s say it, dogma.

I’m two months into my new role as Bible and reference publisher for LifeWay, where I have the privilege of stewarding a Bible translation and producing resources that assist people in reading and understanding God’s Word.

But there’s a scary part to my job, a spiritual element that I cannot shake off.

It hit me recently while I was reviewing study notes for The Spurgeon Study Bible, which will release next fall. Jeremiah 8:8 says, “How can you claim, ‘We are wise; the law of the LORD is with us’?” And Spurgeon comments:

Bible Societies may go on printing Bibles by the millions, but as long as people do not obey what is taught in the Bible, the work of the printing press, like that of the copyist, will be in vain.

We need more than the letter of the Word, valuable as that is. We need to know, in spirit and in truth, what the Spirit teaches through the letter, and also to practice it. God grant that even our Bibles may not rise up in judgment against us!

Surveys show that 88 percent of American households own a Bible. In fact, there are an average of 4.7 Bibles per household. Yet only 37 percent read the Bible once a week or more.

Into this Bible-packed environment come the Bible societies and publishers who pump millions of additional Bibles out of printing presses, where they sit for a while on retail shelves before being purchased and transported to our homes and offices, where (sadly) they often stay closed and cramped on different shelves.

Count how many Bibles you have in your house. Better yet, count how many translations can you consult on your smartphone!

We have easier access to the Word of God than any other generation in history, yet those of us who have Bibles may fail to regularly read them, and those of us who do read the Bible may fail to put God’s Word into practice.

Spurgeon’s warning lands hard on my heart. I’m surrounded by bookshelves filled with all types of Bibles. What if those Bibles could talk? What if they spoke of how often they were consulted, or how often they were obeyed? God grant that even our Bibles may not rise up in judgment against us! Spurgeon cried.

In Psalm 19, when King David spoke of God’s Word, he used words that express joy, delight, and desirability. Reading your Bible shouldn’t feel like a chore, not if you’ve developed the taste for it. The psalmist wants to eat this book. He compares it to honey that is sweet and tasty. Even the warnings he finds tasty—you know, those sections of the Bible that say, “Repent or die!” The psalmist has learned to love even the parts of the Bible that strike him the wrong way.

If you come to the Bible and all you like are the verses that inspire you but not the chapters that confront and strike terror in you, then you have a coffee mug Christianity. You have a God who will just affirm you as you are, not change you into what he wants you to be. The psalmist has learned to love, even when it’s painful, that process of transformation.

So, as we encounter Jesus in the pages of this book, let’s watch how our habits change and our desires change. Let’s read this book, both individually and in community, because here is where God reveals himself to us, tells us the story of his Son, and makes us new.

Study Bibles may be terrific aids in understanding, but only if they result in obedience. More head knowledge is not the goal; heart change matters most. We need more than the letter of the Word, Spurgeon says. We need to be immersed in the Bible, illuminated by the Spirit, and intentional about following God’s commands.

2. Jen Wilkin – 4 Portraits of Power from a Magazine Rack Near You. Consider four of the most common sources of power we seek, and the implications of using them either to glorify self or to glorify God. To identify these sources, we need look no further than the covers of the magazines in the grocery store checkout line.

5. Kalefa Sanneh in The New Yorker – The New Evangelical Moral Minority. Interesting take on the divisions in the religious right, the leadership of Russell Moore, and the place of religious conservatives in American society.

6. Constance Hull – Abortion’s Miscarriage Problem. By acknowledging the tragic reality of miscarriage and supporting those who grieve, we can build a culture of life and encourage our society to recognize the humanity of the unborn child.

The biggest debate in evangelical circles these days is not over same-sex marriage. It’s whether or not male-female marriage is a “core commitment” or an issue we can “agree to disagree” on. And more and more institutions and organizations are making it clear that marriage is the first, not the second.

That means, institutions are rejecting the “moderate” position among evangelicals, which I’ve summed up this way:

“One’s position on homosexuality or gay marriage is not an essential point of theology. There are faithful Christians who disagree on these matters, just as faithful Christians disagree on baptism, the Holy Spirit, church structure, etc. The gospel is not at stake in whichever position you take. What is at stake is our unity before the world and how we love each other. We can agree to disagree on these issues and still partner in missions and relief work.”

The Moderates hold to an unsustainable position. They uphold a traditional understanding of marriage and sexual ethics, and yet they downplay the significance of these issues by taking the “agree to disagree” posture or a quiet agnosticism (“since people disagree on this, who can really know?”). I sympathize with those who feel like the culture has thrust upon us an issue we didn’t ask for and those who are weary of the constant cultural clashes between evangelicals and revisionists. That said, this category will shrink the fastest. The revisionists will challenge moderates to stop linking arms with people who affirm traditional marriage because they are “hateful” and “bigoted.” The evangelicals will challenge moderates to recognize the underlying authority of Scripture issues that accompany this debate. Moderates today will be forced to choose sides tomorrow.

I still stand by that assessment.

A Quiet, But Significant Development

Every few months or so, we see an evangelical leader or celebrity go from the moderate position to the revisionist view on marriage. And every time a Christian singer or thinker or pastor moves in this direction, we see numerous news stories, along with commentaries that applaud the courage of their decision. Activists on social media declare, “Being LGBT-affirming is the future of the church!”

But if you look beyond the headlines, you’ll see that there is a quieter movement taking place, one that will have a much greater impact in coming years. It directly counters the popular narrative that evangelicals are moving quickly to embrace revisionist teachings on marriage.

Look at the Institutions

When you look at how institutions and organizations respond to newly invented views of marriage, you get a more accurate picture of what is taking place. Ed Stetzer pointed out a number of examples yesterday, and to follow up, I’m going to dig into the actual language these organizations are using, which shows that more and more institutions are rejecting the moderate position.

Here’s the takeaway: Even though most of the online attention is directed toward the well-known individual who changes positions, the institution that reaffirms or clarifies the traditional position will have the bigger impact in the coming decades.

The CCCU’s ‘Core Commitments’

The CCCU (Council for Christian Colleges and Universities) went through controversy last year when two schools changed their policies on sexuality and marriage. Union University withdrew due to the council not taking action swiftly enough. This year, however, the CCCU added a statement about Christian distinctives and advocacy, which includes this:

“We hold the Christian belief that human beings, male and female, are created in the image of God to flourish in community, and, as to intimate sexual relations, they are intended for persons in a marriage between one man and one woman. We advocate for the right of Christian institutions to maintain practices that align with this sexual ethic.”

The list of distinctives was prefaced by this statement:

“The CCCU has a robust, necessary and increasingly important advocacy role within the public square. Historic Christian beliefs and practices often intersect with current governmental interests and regulation. These biblical beliefs and practices guide the CCCU advocacy positions—as decided by the Board of Directors—to be in the best interest of advancing Christian higher education in the public square. Among the core commitments that guide our advocacy are . . . “

Note the “core commitments” language. It’s vitally important if you’re going to get an accurate glimpse of what is going on across evangelicalism.

InterVarsity and World Vision Affirm What Is Central

InterVarsity conducted a four-year process of study in how they would reiterate their beliefs on human sexuality. (Four years!)

Then, Greg Jao, InterVarsity vice president and director of campus engagement, invited all employees to take 18 months to work through a nine-part curricula, read a variety of resources, and study the relevant biblical texts to conclude whether they agree with InterVarsity’s unchanged position. In the 20-page summary, the organization clearly states:

“Marriage is defined as a distinctive union between one man and one woman, as husband and wife, in which they covenant with one another to lifelong devotion.”

“We have always expected employees to reflect the ministry’s theological beliefs, as would be true for any church, synagogue, mosque, or religious organization. . . . We recognize employees who disagree, or whose beliefs have changed over time, will leave employment because we have reiterated our beliefs.”

So far, only one prominent evangelical organization has changed its view of sexuality and marriage, only to change it back within a matter of hours—World Vision, the relief organization, whose president Rich Stearns said this:

“What we are affirming today is there are certain beliefs that are so core to our Trinitarian faith that we must take a strong stand on those beliefs. We cannot defer to a small minority of churches and denominations that have taken a different position. . . . On the authority of Scripture in our organization’s work [and employee conduct] . . . and on marriage as an institution ordained by God between a man and a woman­—those are age-old and fundamental Christian beliefs. We cannot defer on things that are central to the faith.”

Notice both the language of “affirming” and “things that are central to the faith.” More and more evangelicals are stepping up, not to become LGBT-affirming, but to reaffirm what Christians have always believed to be vital and non-negotiable. And marriage is clearly seen as in that category.

More Examples

Other organizations are doing the same, including Fuller Seminary, a school within the progressive wing of evangelicalism.

Christianity Today, the flagship magazine for evangelicals, has reaffirmed its commitment to “the unity and depth of Christian teaching on marriage,” in the words of Mark Galli:

“It is reality—and a reality that is not going away anytime soon. Any time at all, for that matter, because it is grounded in the deepest realities.”

Last year, Julie Rodgers, an employee at Wheaton College, resigned after announcing “a significant change in her views on integrating Christian beliefs and same-sex issues.” She did so, at least in part, because she had the integrity to recognize that she no longer aligned with the college’s theological and moral commitments.

Also of note: The Anglican Communion has censured its American wing, The Episcopal Church, because the changes they made on marriage “represent a fundamental departure from the faith.” Again, note the language of “fundamental,” another way of implying just how foundational the view of marriage is.

Reclaiming the Foundation

I am not going to rehash my previous articles on why evangelicals, Catholics, Orthodox, and virtually every other church outside of a subset of shrinking churches in the West, believe marriage is foundational and will never be simply something we can “agree to disagree” on. But I do find it fascinating to see organizations and institutions quietly but firmly restating their views on marriage and treating them as a core doctrine.

So, next time you see a headline about an evangelical who has abandoned the historic position of the Church, remember the institutions.

]]>https://blogs.thegospelcoalition.org/trevinwax/2016/11/02/whats-really-going-on-with-evangelicals-and-same-sex-marriage/feed/6https://blogs.thegospelcoalition.org/trevinwax/2016/11/02/whats-really-going-on-with-evangelicals-and-same-sex-marriage/3 Truths You Should Remember, No Matter What You Do in the Voting Boothhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/wordpress/trevinwax/~3/FTSOXw4zflY/
https://blogs.thegospelcoalition.org/trevinwax/2016/10/31/3-truths-about-christians-and-politics-that-will-still-be-true-after-november-8/#commentsMon, 31 Oct 2016 00:10:00 +0000http://blogs.thegospelcoalition.org/trevinwax/?p=26235

I wrote something about Election 2016 last week, and then filed it away to collect digital dust. Passions run so high these days that one can hardly write anything without people reading the most partisan of ideas into the prose.

This week, I have a better idea. Here are three truths about Christians and politics that are true today and will still be true after next week’s election—truths you should remember no matter what you do in the voting booth.

1. The church is a political people who bear witness to the rule of King Jesus.

Too many people talk as if the church is apolitical when what they really mean to say is that the church is nonpartisan. There is no such thing as an apolitical church, because the church’s one foundation is Jesus Christ our Lord.

The apostles (or emissaries) wrote the New Testament and proclaimed the gospel (the royal announcement) that the crucified Messiah of Israel has been exalted as King of the world. Christians are citizens of the Messiah’s kingdom, who gather together in local congregations (embassies or kingdom outposts) and live as ambassadors for the King. You can’t get more political than that.

I’ve heard some Christians claim that this election matters because America is the last great hope for Christianity. That’s silly. Surely it’s the other way around. It’s Christianity that is the last great hope for America. Christians believe that Jesus is King—His court is higher than any Supreme Court, and he will hold the world to account.

We are most certainly political. But we cannot put party over principle or partisanship over the proclamation of the gospel. Christians believe God is sovereign over all human powers and authorities. We ultimately answer to him, not the party bosses, not the “establishment,” not the political pundits, not the populace, and certainly not the president.

That’s why, at our best, Christians ought to be those who can easily cross political dividing lines. For 2,000 years, church leaders have gained a reputation for being the champions of the poor, for lifting up the marginalized, and for speaking on behalf of those with no voice. This year alone, we’ve seen evangelical Christians on the front lines in settling refugees, ministering to immigrants, and protesting the ongoing violence of abortion.

Right, left, middle, wherever—political parties always tend to turn away from people who are “inconvenient,” to ask “Who is my neighbor?” as a way of shirking our duty to others. Christians, however, are called to see the image of God in every human being, and to call all people everywhere to bow the knee to our King.

2. The church strengthens what is good, challenges what is lacking, and denounces what is bad in our political parties.

The church doesn’t see government as a necessary evil but as a beneficial good. God always ordained that there should be structures of human authority. God wants our community life to be ordered wisely, under the leadership of virtuous people.

Christians are not anarchists. We believe in order and government. We believe that Caesar’s power is given by God, but that as a gift, his power is not ultimate.

So what should our involvement in politics be? Affirm what can be affirmed, challenge what is lacking, and denounce what is evil.

A Christian who only denounces the evil of the opposing party fails to be salt and light. If you agree with everything in your party’s platform, you should examine whether you are formed more by the political environment than by the reign of King Jesus. The sword of his love cuts across all artificial lines.

3. The church speaks truth to power because we believe the final reckoning has begun in King Jesus and will be completed when he returns.

Christians believe that Jesus is on his throne and that he will return to judge the living and the dead. If we represent King Jesus, the One who will call all earthly authorities to account, then we ought to remind authorities of their limited role and make sure they accomplish what they are there for.

We speak truth to power because we know the truth about power. Jesus himself has shown us how the version of power in his kingdom is radically different than what you find in the world.

You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those in high positions act as tyrants over them. But it is not so among you. On the contrary, whoever wants to become great among you will be your servant, and whoever wants to be first among you will be a slave to all. (Mark 10:42-44, CSB)

In the embassies of King Jesus, the greatest is the One who serves. The message of the cross turns the power of this world upside down and shows us a new way to live.

In the political realm, we are called always to witness, not always to win. Faithful witness means we speak truth to power even when it is inconvenient. Sometimes, we will sound like John the Baptist crying in the wilderness. Other times, we will sound like the apostle Paul, putting forward a winsome case for why Christianity is good for the world.

Regardless of our posture and tone, we will be speaking truth to power, standing before kings and presidents and rulers and Supreme Court justices, knowing that the One who turns the heart of the king is the One who turned our hearts toward him in repentance and faith. And he’s not up for re-election.